


bucky barnes stares at unconscious steve rogers on a river bank whilst trying to figure out why the fuck he saved him

by ocaptainrogers



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, bucky pulled steve out of the potomac AU, idk how i feel about this????, no not a whim my friend bullied me into writing this for her, this is basically just bucky staring at steve, thorougly bad stuff written on a whim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:11:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2279661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocaptainrogers/pseuds/ocaptainrogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is too short to have a real summary, but it started out as a text message to a friend trying to get her to cry and i guess it worked because she immediately demanded more, so i guess this is it</p><p>bucky stares at steve. bucky thinks about why he saved steve. bucky doesn't really get anywhere except tangled in his own thoughts</p>
            </blockquote>





	bucky barnes stares at unconscious steve rogers on a river bank whilst trying to figure out why the fuck he saved him

He’s staring at him. His … mission. Something inside of him cringes at that, it somehow doesn’t feel right calling this man – Steve Rogers – his _mission._ ‘Mission’ is synonymous for ‘kill’ and he didn’t kill Steve Rogers, so what does that make him? A failed mission? Ex-mission? _The man I chose to save instead of kill?_ A … a friend? He’d said they were friends. He’d said so. Looked him square in the eye, dropped his shield through a hole in the hovercraft and just … stopped.

He’s staring at him. His … mission. There are different kinds of missions, he reminds himself. Sometimes a mission is to keep someone alive instead of trying to achieve the opposite.

“You’re my mission,” he whispers to the unconscious man on the ground. He’d saved him. Saved him why? The man once known only as ‘the asset’ cocks his head and keeps staring. He squares his shoulders, cringing. His right one is still busted, but he finds he doesn’t blame Steve Rogers, The Mission for it even the slightest. It’s unsettling.

The man once known only as ‘the asset’ bends down on one knee, ignoring a sharp rock digging into his calf, and stares. “You’re my mission,” he says, and his voice is calm, assertive … soft.

“You’re my mission,” he says and his right hand reaches out to touch Steve Rogers’ shoulder. Just the top, the part closest to him; two fingers briefly resting on top of an outfit that looks familiar even though he’s sure he’s never seen it before.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” he says. It’s the first time he’s ever talked to one of his missions, but then again, this is the first time he’s ever appointed himself one, too. Might as well make the most of it.

The thought makes the edges of his lips twitch. He doesn’t allow the smile to fully develop before he tenses his jaw and schools his features. Today might hold a lot of ‘firsts’ but he draws the line as smiling.

“You’re not gonna die,” he says and he almost adds ‘Steve’. Almost. He doesn’t know why he denies himself only one word, doesn’t know why there’s what appears to be a stone in his chest that feels awfully heavy, doesn’t know why it seems to get heavier every time he watches the miss- _Steve Rogers_ breathe. He’s aware of the fact that apparently he doesn’t know a lot of things, but he intends to.

A constant part of his past missions had always been ‘get to know then, every detail’ and this one’s not gonna be any different, although, he’s never let himself learn and memorize how any of them breathed when they weren’t awake. The cut of their jaw, the slope of their nose. How much energy it takes to drag their unconscious body out of a river after you inexplicably jumped after to save them.

There’s a tug in his chest, a sharp pull, and it feels like it’s killing him. How ironic. He can’t kill Steve Rogers, so instead Steve Rogers seems very set on trying to kill _him_. Deliberately or not.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” he repeats for his own sake, to remind himself or the choice he made. “I’m not gonna kill you, but I don’t … I-,” he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about or what he means, what he’s trying to convince himself of. He only knows that there’s a feeling heavily laced into his entire nervous system and it reminds him an awful lot of relief.

Relief and … something else. It scares him, and it’s … scary, being scared. It’s a concept all but unknown to him; he’s the Winter Soldier! He’s not supposed to get scared – people get scared of _him_. But there they are, these two warring emotions; fright and relief. Is it relief? He doesn’t know exactly, just knows that he’s felt this way before … once. He’s gonna have to think about that later, try to figure it out, figure _everything_ out.

He’s staring at him. Steve Rogers. And he’s got two storms inside of him, twin hurricanes both equally jarring and horrifying, and he has no idea what to do, nowhere to go, no one to talk to except the man on the ground that _he_ saved. Why? Why did he save him? He doesn’t know, but he intends to find out.


End file.
